My research focus is on the design, implementation, and outcomes of collaboration in cross-sector governance networks – in particular collaboration in public-private partnerships (PPPs) – in infrastructure development and management.

In my current postdoc position, I focus on studying how the institutional design of collaboration in PPPs in spatial planning projects can be improved. Specifically: how can public-private partnerships serve as vehicles for generating added value to infrastructure planning. For instance, how can partnerships help to combine the development of transport infrastructure with the development of sustainable energy production?

Besides my appointment at the University of Groningen, I am also a member of the editorial board of Public Works Management & Policy and a visiting Researcher at Rijkswaterstaat with the Directorate of Procurement and Contract Management.

Prior to my appointment at the University of Groningen, I was an Akademischer Rat auf Zeit at the Department of Political Science at the University of Bamberg (Germany), where I was affiliated with the Chair for the Governance of Innovative and Complex Technological Systems (2015-2016). I was a PhD Candidate at the Department of Public Administration at Erasmus University Rotterdam from 2011 to 2015. In that period, I also worked as a visiting researcher at Rijkswaterstaat with the Directorate of Production and Project Management (The Netherlands), and at the Bertelsmann Foundation (Germany) where I worked with the Sustainable Governance Indicators 2014 project. In my PhD research I developed and applied qualitative comparative analysis (QCA) as a complexity-informed method for evaluating the management and public-private partnership of infrastructure projects. I received my PhD degree on the 10th of September 2015 at Erasmus University Rotterdam.

My main research interests and activities are located in (the intersections of) the areas: